The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers

by Eric Weiner

As we walk, I take the initiative and dadsplain about existentialism. I dadsplain how it is a philosophy, as the name implies, focused on existence, and thus represents a return to the original, therapeutic mission of philosophy. Not a what but a how. How can we lead more authentic, meaningful lives? The good news, existentialists say, is that the answer is entirely up to us. Not God or human nature. There is no human nature, only possible natures. Or, as Beauvoir said: “Man’s nature is to have no nature.” This is incredibly empowering—and terrifying. We are, in the famous words of Sartre, “condemned to be free.” We yearn for freedom but also fear it, for if we are truly free we have no one but ourselves to blame for our unhappiness. For the existentialists, we are what we do. Period. We are no more and no less than our projects fully realized. There is no such thing as love in the abstract, only acts of love; no genius, only acts of genius. In our deeds, we draw our self-portrait, one brushstroke at a time. We are that portrait “and nothing but that portrait,” Sartre said. Stop trying to find yourself. Start painting yourself. We can become anything we want, I dadsplain. Just because you’re a waiter in a café, to use one of Sartre’s best-known examples, doesn’t mean you must remain a waiter. You have choices, and it is through these choices, consciously made and rigorously pursued, that we create our essence.